You all know them, the kind that drives you up the wall with annoyance because their strategy actually works a lot of the time. They bring up tons of arguments in the 2NC, and impact the rest in the 1NR giving the 1AR almost no time to respond with.

My question is, what is a good strategy against such debaters? How do you respond to arguments that you have almost no time to respond to?

_________________-JoshuaThe dumb Boatswain's Mate who once did debateProud Coastie, Puddle Pirate, and Shallow Water Sailor

If they bring up new impacts in the 1NR, you should make a case for why those shouldn't be considered because they were new in the rebuttal.

Are impacts classified under the argument status as far as what can and cannot be brought up in the rebuttals? Because whenever you respond to a previous argument, you're essentially impacting it in the judges mind by providing another aspect of the argument with the purpose of response to aff's response.

_________________-JoshuaThe dumb Boatswain's Mate who once did debateProud Coastie, Puddle Pirate, and Shallow Water Sailor

My question is, what is a good strategy against such debaters? How do you respond to arguments that you have almost no time to respond to?

Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. Clump arguments together and make your responses as tight as possible. This is actually something I recommend practicing - being able to flick a switch and become maximally efficient and concise is incredibly useful. And, I find that practicing conciseness improves your clarity even when you're not trying to be concise.

My favorite exercise is to go over old flows, and try to deliver every argument in exactly four sentences: one to identify the argument, one to state your response, one to explain your warrants, and one to impact it. Basically, the apocalypse structure, the generalized form of four-point refutation. For example:

Quote:

They said that their plan will improve relations with Russia. (argument) However, history disproves this. (response) Almost their exact plan was passed in 1949, and again in 1973, and both times it made relations worse. (warrants) If you pass the Affirmative plan, relations won't get better, they'll get worse. (impact)

I wrote a blog post about speech efficiency here. It goes into more detail, but the main points are:

At the table1. Clump. Actively look for patterns that let you respond to multiple arguments with one point.2. Dump. Drop whatever you can safely drop.

At the stand1. Keep organization crisp. Organize your speech to require minimal explanation, and don't waste time with a long roadmap or wordy signposting.2. Know when to stop. Get right to the point, make it, and force yourself to move on. If you say it clearly, the judge WILL get it the first time.3. Talk faster... but sparingly. Talking fast is normally a really bad idea, but it can be a useful skill for specific situations. Your word economy will degrade, though, so you may not actually be able to get through points any faster.

3. Talk faster... but sparingly. Talking fast is normally a really bad idea, but it can be a useful skill for specific situations. Your word economy will degrade, though, so you may not actually be able to get through points any faster.

Correction: Talking fast is usually a really bad idea if you aren't good at it. If you're watching someone who is really good at speaking fast (and have practiced for a long time), everyone from grandmas to debaters can understand it, and their word economy is perfect.

3. Talk faster... but sparingly. Talking fast is normally a really bad idea, but it can be a useful skill for specific situations. Your word economy will degrade, though, so you may not actually be able to get through points any faster.

Correction: Talking fast is usually a really bad idea if you aren't good at it. If you're watching someone who is really good at speaking fast (and have practiced for a long time), everyone from grandmas to debaters can understand it, and their word economy is perfect.

That's what I mean. Talking fast in an effective way takes a lot of skill, so for most debaters, trying to speed up is a bad idea. Focus on conciseness first. But, if you can speed up and still maintain clarity and word economy, it can help in certain situations.

3. Talk faster... but sparingly. Talking fast is normally a really bad idea, but it can be a useful skill for specific situations. Your word economy will degrade, though, so you may not actually be able to get through points any faster.

Correction: Talking fast is usually a really bad idea if you aren't good at it. If you're watching someone who is really good at speaking fast (and have practiced for a long time), everyone from grandmas to debaters can understand it, and their word economy is perfect.

This. Just finished judging an NFL tournament yesterday. At first I was a little hesitant to say that I was okay with speed, but some of the debaters attempts at speeding made me laugh. It wasn't that they weren't talking fast-- it's that they were talking more and saying less than they probably would've had they delivered it conversationally, so I had no trouble following what they were trying to say.

Anyway, I don't really have anything else unique to contribute -- clumping, dumping and all that good stuff has always seemed sufficient.

One thing to remember is that smarts will always beat speed. Very few people (myself included) are as smart when going speed as they are when going slow. That isn't to say that speed debaters don't understand debate or aren't intelligent; they just can't think about their arguments for as long. When I competed, I was terrified of facing Spencer Orlowski, a debater for Western Kentucky. He can fly, but very rarely actually does. Instead he goes slightly above conversational speed and very rarely drops anything important. While he does make mistakes, I never once beat him, which he won't let me forget.

Moral of the story: know your game. My game was speed; I was willing to bet that even the really smart debaters would make at least one mistake I could exploit. If your game isn't speed, learn how to beat it by being smarter. It's hard--in my opinion harder than learning speed--but it's very doable. You'll very rarely see a debater that can be both fast and smart, and they're almost unbeatable.

If they bring up new impacts in the 1NR, you should make a case for why those shouldn't be considered because they were new in the rebuttal.

Are impacts classified under the argument status as far as what can and cannot be brought up in the rebuttals? Because whenever you respond to a previous argument, you're essentially impacting it in the judges mind by providing another aspect of the argument with the purpose of response to aff's response.

I think that undoubtedly an entirely new impact scenario is new argumentation. If they take an impact and elaborate on it with some new analysis, that's grey area moving toward acceptability. If they take impacts and compare (weigh) them to other impacts and contextualize the narratives, that's what the rebuttals are all about and fine. But, I think at the point where there's brand new narrative, it's probably new.

Hammy, I find speed spreading quite agitating, but it can be a very useful technique. Basically give short 2-3 sentance responses....I always write out my responses to all my opponets arguments from my last tournament (THEY ARE OFTEN ALL THE SAME!!!!) Also grouping is a good technique....If it is all over the board than I suggest that you show how they have not shown that that point would harm/uphold (INSERT CRITERION HERE!)-Ruth

If they do that with anything other than a judge who likes that (maybe some alum, or previous NFL debater) they are probably alienating the judge...

What you have to do is clump everything together into as few points as possible. Anything that has the same response, just put it together. You should know every single point against your case well, so this should be a natural response. If you don't know every point against your case, you might be running too many cases (eww) or not working enough on your aff

Use only one response per argument unless one is especially important. Most people make the mistake of trying to KILL each argument rather than just beat them in the 1AR, which wastes their time.

Bring up an overall theme for why their arguments don't apply. For example, old evidence compared to your new evidence saying all of that is wrong. Or "unrealistic" possibilities.

Those are some random, disorganized tips.

An example: Two years ago I ran recording custodial interrogations. We had like 3 mandates, one of them had 3-4 exceptions to the rule. As you can expect, we'd get arguments against all our mandates and exceptions, as well as all kinds of theoretical problems with recording interrogations.

I had the job in the 1AR of not just defending our exceptions (with evidence), but also defending against persuasive points.

I would start by pointing out there was a study done of 4,000 departments that recorded interrogations, and not ONE of them wanted to go back to the old way. I then compared it to the debate round saying, "Wouldn't you find it useful to have a video recording of this debate round?" So the theme was: Empirics. We had empirical studies on our side. We had real-life implementation on our side.

Then I'd respond to all the exceptions with statistics of how they're rarely used but necessary, and respond to the DA's with empirics as well.

See what I'm getting at? I set the tone: Our plan is considered good by 4,000 departments, who found none of the negative team's arguments to be true. Vote aff please and thank you.

TL;DR: Set up a theme that shows a huge flaw in negative argumentation, then use that theme to combat all their arguments in short sentences. Address several arguments at once.

I would start by pointing out there was a study done of 4,000 departments that recorded interrogations, and not ONE of them wanted to go back to the old way. I then compared it to the debate round saying, "Wouldn't you find it useful to have a video recording of this debate round?" So the theme was: Empirics. We had empirical studies on our side. We had real-life implementation on our side.

That's brilliant. I've done this a few times on the Neg (sticking to a theme), but never could really place why it felt like a better speech afterwards. Now I know.

I agree with Giovanni, sticking to a theme is always a good idea. The only thing I would add is that if your case has a goal or value, actually use it, because that's an obvious and powerful theme. Lots of negatives will say "yes, we agree with your goal" in CX and then bring up a bunch of points that don't have anything to do with the goal, and pointing that out is an efficient way to do impact calculus and address multiple arguments in little time. On the flip side, lots of affirmatives will use a goal but only mention it in the last 10 seconds of their speech, so don't do that. If your case lends itself to having a goal, take full advantage of it by using it as your "theme" throughout the entire round, and the judge will be left with a clear and coherent reason to vote for you.

Write arguments in advance and create 30 second versions of each argument.

This is an outstanding technique that I teach as well.

DO NOT start your 1AR with some silly quote that takes you 30 secs time is to precious, spend 15 seconds road mapping then go and no more than 15 sec to wrap up for a total speech time of 270 seconds

That gives you enough time to make 9 responses. Now look at your flow how many arguments do you have to respond to? Most speed and spreaders can't manage much more than that maybe 5 or 6 DAs and 4 or 5 Solvency combine that with maybe a few arguments you might need to come back that your 2AC did not pounce all over and the 1AR chose to revive. So let's say 12 to 15; if you have more than this I can't imagine any of those arguments are worth much (and honestly most rounds I've seen even with speeders rarely flow out to more than 10 items about three or four case side and maybe six DA/solvency and those are the exception most are much less)

Now your job is to clump enough of those together to get you to 9 or dump enough to get you there, should be easy enough.

One caution as the aff I would NEVER DUMP without telling the judge why, then ask yourself can I beat the argument in as many or fewer words than it takes to explain why you are dumping if so always opt for beating the argument, if your are not in a time crunch do both a) we shouldn't even be talking about this because..... b) even if you do think it's valid to talk about the point itself is not valid because...

One thing to always be on the lookout for especially for DAs are links if two or three DAs have the same link take out the link and you defeat both.

One place where I would advocate speeding right back at them is during your 30 second responses include evidence (cut appropriately) and don't be afraid to read the card as quickly as you can and stay understandable....to a lay person but don't be afraid to be faster if it's a prelim and your one judge has told you they don't care ( I always do when asked). One of my pet peeves is listening to someone read a full card during the 1AR and eat up a minute or more of time only to start going faster than a speeding bullet once the timekeeper throws up the 1 minute sign and they have 3 or 4 arguments left to respond to.

I am not sure the NCFCA has evolved too much on the issue on purpose because they want debate to be understandable to all; so don't be surprised if speeders get punished with a loss as often as they get credited with a win for overwhelming a poorly prepared 1AR.

Do not start your 1AR with "the negative team brought up a lot of arguments, so I'm going to have to go through them pretty quickly." It's time consuming, apologetic, and kind of annoying. <3 It's okay to go straight into the arguments. I would often have to start my 1ARs with "the first argument neg team brought up was this, but it's wrong because x." It worked out well for me.

Four point refutation is extremely important. Make a great tag, say it once, and follow up with a one or two sentence explanation of the argument. Impact in one sentence and move one. You should practice doing this before the round- like Jon Chi said, 30 seconds per argument is a good time frame.

When I did TP, Isaac and I also found it helpful for him to read all the evidence we needed for refutation in the 2AC. He would frame it as more support for our case, of course, but the cards he read contained sentences against disadvantages, solvency, inherency, et cetera. That way, making 1AR arguments was less time consuming and I had evidence to support all my arguments. It also tended to make the neg team look like they weren't listening since I was often able to use the phrase "like my partner already said..."

When you hit a team that is very good at speeding and spreading, it ultimately comes down to picking your battles. Efficiency is the goal of course, but sometimes it's just not possible. When there are too many arguments on the table or the arguments are too complicated to simplify, you have two choices. You can keep being slow, address only the arguments that matter, bundle as much as you can and try to distinguish yourself as the better speaker. Or you can bite the bullet and spread better than they did. I tended towards the second strategy, but there are benefits to both, depending on your style and the judge's preferences.

My debaters mostly do IPDA, so the 1AR isn't up against the same kind of time pressure as in TP, but there's still time pressure, and the thing I nag my novices about endlessly until they do it reliably is this: watch, during the negative speech(es), for a mistake: an argument of yours they under-covered, or an argument of theirs that backfires and makes a difference on a key issue. At the start of your 1AR, don't go for pleasantries or empty commentary: cut right to the heart of the matter by starting with that mistake. Quickly describe and impact it. And in the dying seconds of your speech, mention it again.

The lesson: you're never under as much time pressure as you think you are. That could only be possible if every issue in the debate was equally important to the outcome, and that's simply never true. But you find yourself under the illusion of that kind of pressure because you don't know what the judge found significant until you see the ballot, so it's tempting to treat all issues as equally important. A far better way to handle that pressure is to step out boldly and frame the issues yourselves. A handy framework for getting your first step into that process is to think about critical negative mistakes, and invest placement (first and last) but NOT excessive amounts of time in making those mistakes very memorable to the judge.

Also, maybe it's because I've grown more cynical over the past year and since I exited NCFCA, but I would call the judge's attention to the strategy of the Negative team (if it's abusive). Something like "they are trying to spread us so thin that we can't have a reasonable discussion about the merits of the case." Again, that depends on how abusive they are. If a case ACTUALLY has 20 gaping holes in it, then I think that a speed and spread could be warranted (but you, as Neg, should say that you are running so many arguments for a specific reason).

All of that's my opinion so it's worth what you paid for it. I've come to belief recently that you should be frank with the Judge on most things and not hide everything under the dark cloak of debate theory or aught else. Be genuine.

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